It’s hardly a coincidence that the steady enrollment growth in Ripon Unified nearly mirrors the City of Ripon.

At Monday’s Ripon Unified school board meeting, Planning Director Ken Zuidervaart provided a review of Ripon’s residential growth for 2019.

“This is the same report presented to the Ripon City Council at the February meeting,” he said.

Some of his figures were based on the state Department of Finance’s estimates from last year, including:

• The population of Ripon at the beginning of 2019 was at about 16,613.
• The number of Single Residential Permits issued for the City of Ripon during this span was 70, with no Multi-Family Permits being issued – the number of permits represents an estimated 1.2 percent growth rate for 2019 in dwelling units.

The 70 new housing units in Ripon is almost a 10th of Manteca’s housing stock growth. Manteca issued 533 single family home permits in 2019 along with 160 multiple-family units.

He noted that U.S. Census Bureau had an estimate of 2.93 people per household, upping the City’s population at the end of last year to about 16,818.

RUSD’s enrollment numbers have also steadily increased.

The current total number of students taken from the sixth month – Jan. 13 to Feb. 7 – is 3,339.

Ripon High led the way with 972 students, followed by Ripona Elementary (474), Park View (467), Ripon Elementary (467), Weston (460) and Colony Oak (460).

Harvest High and the Independent Study program had counts of 22 and 15, respectively.

About a year ago at this time, RUSD had a total enrollment of 3,248 and, in 2017-2018 school year, was at 3,170 during that sixth-month running tally.